Great Contemporaries

Hopkins to Churchill, 1942: “‘Where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God’…Even to the end.”

Winston Churchill was not a man to bear grudges, and firmly admired the Irish. Yet he was strangely oblivious to the widespread, albeit not universal, hostility still felt towards him in nationalist Ireland. In 1953 he faced a libel action in Ireland arising out of his memoirs. It was brought by Eric Dorman-Smith, an Irish-born general whom he had dismissed during the Desert War. He expressed doubt that “an Irish jury would necessarily be unfair or that they would be prejudiced against me.” His legal advisers knew better. They made sure the case was settled before it got to be heard before a jury in Dublin. When Churchill died in 1965, de Valera, now President of Ireland, lauded him as a great Englishman. He could not omit to add the rider that Churchill had been a “dangerous enemy” of the Irish people.

Pamela Harriman, said Jacques Chirac, was “elegance itself...a peerless diplomat.” That old Francophile, her father-in-law, would have smiled.

Still visible above swirls of pettiness, heroes remain: Brooke, the great general; above him, looming ever larger, the man who saved liberty.

Wingate “lives on in the long-range penetration groups, and all these intricate and daring air and military operations.” —WSC

Lawrence “was indeed a dweller upon the mountain tops…and where the view on clear days commands all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them.” —WSC

With his many achievements, Haldane stood as warning that the apex of politics, there was no such thing as friendship. Except perhaps with Churchill.

Throwback to vanished age, Sassoon served his country in war and peace, and entertained the glitterati at his palatial mansions. He died too young.

Among his generals, Churchill thought Alexander “the best we had.” Alex for his part was ever faithful, saying, “I can’t simply refuse Winston.”

The Churchills, father and son, had close friendships with prominent, talented Jews. One was Nathaniel Mayer “Natty” Rothschild, First Baron Rothschild, head of the British branch of the famous banking family. He was the first Jewish member of the House of Lords. Another was Sir Ernest Joseph Cassel, also of Jewish origin, though he became a Catholic in 1880. A renowned merchant banker and financier, Sir Ernest was young Winston’s mentor, financial consultant and lifelong friend.

He died in 1965 and Clare followed him five years later. Their relationship has been side-lined or ignored by many biographers more interested in politics than in Churchill’s private life. But the bust made by the “Obstreperous Anarchist” forever stands in the hallway of Chartwell. It is mute testimony to a family friendship that endured through tempestuous times.

Only a statesman with the broad tolerance of Winston Churchill could laugh off Shaw’s politics while acknowledging his literary genius.